I want to roll more dice!

[Andrew Cooper]

On the contrary... why would you roll for this? You could see it as a way to eliminate a traditional GM or give him surprises, but why would you want such a random creation? When we take our GNS: For Gamism, you could do that to add more flavour, but you aren't really interested in real flavour.  For Sim: it's mucht to random, for most players want some consistency in their world. When you create a random world, you aren't exploring the world you as GM created, but you are exploring a random world. Nar: You can create conflicts in whatever situation you would like, but why would you use a table to roll on? People like to decide themselves what they want.

I'm not sure I buy this Remko.  Why wouldn't Gamism be interested in flavour?  Who says?  My group and I are pretty strong Gamists and we love flavour and would probably really groove with Tony's examples of the Elven woods.  I can also think of entire styles of Sim (especially Sim with a priority of Exploration of System) where having this kind of randomness would be good too.  Players would have some input... dice get rolled... see what comes out and Explore that.  I also can't see why Nar would care/mind if such Color elements were randomized.  It's not taking away their input into addressing the things they find truly important.

[TonyLB]

Remko:  Why would I do it?  Because often a good random system, combined with player input, makes for a better experience than player input alone and unstructured.

This isn't about eliminating the GM, any more than having him roll to see whether an orc hits or misses is.  It is about giving him tools that both empower and restrict him, to spark and structure creativity.

[Sean]

This is a weird thread to me because I came up in the seventies and early eighties, when this kind of random input was basically a normal thing to provide with a system or supplement, for fantasy games at least.

One of the earliest successful D&D supplements was a Judges Guild product called the Ready Ref Sheets that was nothing but tables for this kind of thing. Sure, the one everyone remembers is the absurdly sexist 'women' table, but then there's the 'ravaged ruins' table that tells you what kind of building it was, how it's buried, what state it's in, the texture of the mold, and so on. Weird flora and fauna tables for color and maybe hunting in every environment. And so on.

Likewise the AD&D DMG is full of this kind of color stuff, usefully charted, everything from the mystical significance of gems to random dungeon dressing tables. The Hackmaster GMG has a lot of solid tables of this kind too.

There are also great tools like this in old city adventures. If you look at the random city encounter charts in Gamelords' Free City of Haven and Midkemia Press' Cities you will find table upon table with dozens of evocative bits, flavorful happenings, and adventure seeds.

I meant to post this earlier but I kept feeling like I wasn't understanding the thread. Now though seeing the 'random elven forest color' idea supported by Tony I think 'well, OK, so these hotshots at the Forge just reinvented old school wilderness and city adventures'. Or if that's not it then what am I missing?

[TonyLB]

Well, do those tables have any player input, under the rules?  Or do the players only have input if they ignore the "roll on the table" rule and choose instead?

[Eric Provost]

Hmm... I think I might know what you're getting at here, Tony.

[list=1][*]murky
[*]foreboding
[*]green
[*]looming
[*]moon
[*]trees[/list:o]Roll twice from the table above, and be sure to include those words in your narration about the swamp you're travelling through.

Would the above qualify for what you're looking for?  Because while we know that we're going through a swamp, and we're probably all qualified to describe a creepy swamp, a little random input might guide us in a direction we might not have otherwise narrated.

[TonyLB]

It's... urgh.  I'm frustrated, not by the responses, but by my inability to articulate this clearly.  My bad.

Yes, that's random influence.  But it's purely random influence, which is just one possible way of building rules, and (to my mind) the least interesting.  There's no player influence, no ability for the player and the system to interact in any meaningful way.  That system isn't a tool like a screwdriver (which a carpenter can turn to his own purposes).  It's an independent machine, and it does what it does no matter what you'd like it to do.

By way of comparison, a slightly more elaborated swamp-system:

Atmosphere:
1. You wouldn't want to build a summer home here, but some of the trees are quite nice
2. Okay, this is not a comfortable place to hang out
3. The eyes are everywhere, watching, JUDGING, but you'll be damned if you let them see how scared you are.
4. It's all you can do not to gibber and cower... hiding your fear is out of the question.
5. You see something horrible, and completely break down.
6. You succumb to terror and flee for your life

Discomfort:
1. Your shoes get wet
2. It's hard to keep walking with the mud sucking at your feet
3. It stinks so bad that your eyes water and you're often stopped by coughing spasms.
4. You are covered in muck and mire, unable to move freely, and you won't be clean for days
5. You fall in quicksand
6. Toxic fumes choke you to the point of asphyxiation

Tactical:
1. I know everything there is to know about fighting in swamps... even a snake is at a terrain disadvantage compared to me.
2. You are well concealed, and likely to have advantage over enemies
3. Nobody can see much of anything, for all this fog
4. You get glimpses of something, but it can avoid you easily when you try to approach.  You're on its home turf, and you know it.
5. Things move in the shadows... you can't keep track of them, but you know they're following you.
6. Your enemies are watching you constantly, and can attack at their leisure

Roll three dice.  Choose which die to apply to which table.

There isn't much player input here, but even a little goes a long way.  Say you roll 1, 3, 6... what type of swamp do you end up in?  Note how the nature of the swamp now becomes an outgrowth of the player priorities.  More robust systems will provide even better tools for players to define their world.

I don't have Burning Wheel yet (waiting to get it straight from Luke's hands), but my impression is that the Lifepaths do much the same thing:  they're a game that you play in order to inspire and restrict yourself in creating a character.

[ErrathofKosh]

Sounds Rolemaster-ish... with a little more freedom.  But, I like it.

[Eric Provost]

Oh, wait... I see.  Player priorities.  Gotcha.  I think I see where you're going.

First, I'd like to just say that I think my example totally has more player input than yours does.  I just tell the player that he's gotta talk about the trees, not what he's gotta say.  :p

But, that aside, I'm thinking I may have a grasp on what you're saying.  Especially if the 1-6 scale for each one has some kind of corresponding scale for each of them.  Like, the higher the number the 'darker' it gets.

Which, now that I look closely at your charts, I see that you've done already.  If you rolled a mixed batch of numbers, like your 1,3,6 example, then you've gotta choose what's important to you from a flavor point of view, the darkness of the atmosphere, the comfort of your character, or the potential for danger.

Do I grok?

And do you think it'd be fair to say that what you're really looking for is something that forces players to make a choice, to see what they're really after in flavor?

-Eric

[TonyLB]

It certainly sounds like you are grokking in fullness, yes.

I'm not at the point yet where I'm thinking "These systems should force players to make a choice."  That's a design goal, I suspect.  I'm simply observing that the systems can force players to make a choice.  They can do many things.  There's potential power and structure and entertainment to be had from a well-designed system for non-conflict priorities, and comparatively few designers are exploring that in anywhere near as much depth as they do their conflict resolution.

[Andrew Norris]

But I am ludicrously blocked on what those things would be.  Surely system can help people to choose between alternatives in the absence of conflict?  But how and why?

My first thought is that system could introduce an element of chance into the flow and pacing of the game. You could use it to determine when to introduce additional complications, for example.

On a very basic level, that's what wandering monsters are. Of course, back in those days I remember half the table saying, "Finally, some action!" and the other half going, "Groan... now we'll never get to the good stuff." (I also would imagine they originated as a way to "add realism" and  penalize dawdling, and the effect on pacing was a side effect.)

But I could see something like this being used to help a GM determine when to throw in a new Bang, or to cut from one scene to the next, or to slow down the pace for a bit, or start building to the next conflict. Then I think, "No way, that kind of thing needs to be left for the GM to determine", but then I think again, "Wait, that's what people used to say about things like social conflicts."

To use Ron's bass-playing analogy, maybe there's a time when you start switching tempo based on a random factor, not because you want to truly play random music, but because it sparks your creativity.

[Callan S.]

Hey Tony,

From that table you gave, I'd get the impression something like a list of entries like this would do it.

Entry #. (a description of your current position or state). Now go to either chart A or chart B, your choice. But you must choose.

And the player basically knows the contents of each chart and sort of goes with one on the feel he gets from either. These charts lead to other charts in the same way. Well, sort of sounds like a good start to designing for the goal.

[CCW]

Hi Tony,

I'm feeling a bit whimsical, so I can't help thinking of those psychological / employment tests you see all over the place (myers-briggs for example):

you want to buy a pair of shoes.  Which pair do you choose:
A) comfy slippers
B) fashionable heels
C) combat boots

choice A might, for example, give you a -1 on the Discomfort table, B -1 for Atmosphere, and C -1 on the Tactical table.  Then you'd have perhaps 50 similar questions, designed in a devious way so that it wasn't always roaringly obvious which answer changed which table, and finally you'd tally the results and have a description:

You have scored a 4 on the TonyLB atmosphere scale, it's all you can do not to gibber...

Charles

[Remko]

On the contrary... why would you roll for this? You could see it as a way to eliminate a traditional GM or give him surprises, but why would you want such a random creation? When we take our GNS: For Gamism, you could do that to add more flavour, but you aren't really interested in real flavour.  For Sim: it's mucht to random, for most players want some consistency in their world. When you create a random world, you aren't exploring the world you as GM created, but you are exploring a random world. Nar: You can create conflicts in whatever situation you would like, but why would you use a table to roll on? People like to decide themselves what they want.

I'm not sure I buy this Remko.  Why wouldn't Gamism be interested in flavour?  Who says?  My group and I are pretty strong Gamists and we love flavour and would probably really groove with Tony's examples of the Elven woods.  I can also think of entire styles of Sim (especially Sim with a priority of Exploration of System) where having this kind of randomness would be good too.  Players would have some input... dice get rolled... see what comes out and Explore that.  I also can't see why Nar would care/mind if such Color elements were randomized.  It's not taking away their input into addressing the things they find truly important.

The part about gamism: sure, I guess you're right. Gamism could be interested in  bit flavour. Unless I don't understand the meaning of Sim, I can't agree with you. I think consistency is the core to exploration, because it then can feel real... isn't that what Sim's all about?

Nar perhaps wouldn't care, but Nar likes to give player freedom. Why bother making a chart when you simply can tell create the world and story you like to create yourself?

[TonyLB]

Remko:  Well, exploration requires consistent resolution of fights too, right?  But I don't hear people saying that combat systems, as a concept are antithetical to Sim play.  Bad, sloppy, Dream-breaking combat systems are antithetical to Sim play.

So I'm not sure why you naturally assume that any system for non-conflict issues will break the Dream.  Are you saying that it's impossible to make a system for non-conflict issues that is as consistent and dream-reinforcing as existing conflict systems?

[Remko]

Remko:  Well, exploration requires consistent resolution of fights too, right?  But I don't hear people saying that combat systems, as a concept are antithetical to Sim play.  Bad, sloppy, Dream-breaking combat systems are antithetical to Sim play.

So I'm not sure why you naturally assume that any system for non-conflict issues will break the Dream.  Are you saying that it's impossible to make a system for non-conflict issues that is as consistent and dream-reinforcing as existing conflict systems?

Perhaps it's something personal, but I find combat systems Dream-breaking, yes. Or at least when they require more than a mere roll to resolve.

Perhaps I'm just to big of a Dreamer.... Therefore, I always want to use conflict resolution systems. I think I could see myself as personal-sim, nar-oriented player.

I'm not saying that making a system for non-conflict issues is wrong... it's just that I can't understand your goal with such a system. Then again, perhaps I don't understand Exploration of System... Perhaps I'm only percieving Sim as Exploration of dreams...

But that all aside... I can't see the use of continuous randomisation. It adds some form of flavour for sure, but the time lossed with rolling could be invested in roleplaying. And I'm not sure if I find the tension gained by storytelling is worth to lose to a bit more flavoured telling as you propose in your example.

You lose the tension created by the story when you roll for such random factors.